


Trojan Horses, Grazing on the Grass

by cagethesongbird



Series: Classification AU [1]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother-Sister Relationships, Caretaking, Classification AU, Drug Withdrawal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Non-Sexual Age Play, Other, Panic Attacks, Season/Series 01, Tags May Change, alternate universe - littles are known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:37:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24680179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cagethesongbird/pseuds/cagethesongbird
Summary: In computing, a Trojan horse, or simply trojan, is any malware that intentionally misleads the user of its true intention, whether that be sexy spam emails or fake advertisements used to backdoor important user information.In Elliot Alderson's life, a Trojan horse is what he privately calls all the people trying to take care of him. Like the computing version, or the Greek story it's named after, he's never completely sure what's waiting behind the gifts of kindness. When his classification is finally realized, he must finally make a decision:Is he going to let the horse in? Or are his walls going up for good?
Relationships: Darlene Alderson & Elliot Alderson, Elliot Alderson & Krista Gordon, Elliot Alderson & Tyrell Wellick
Series: Classification AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820335
Comments: 25
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is gonna be a long one, folks. stay with me, and i promise i'll make it worthwhile :D  
> and thank you, as always, for taking the time to read my work. it means the world!
> 
> canon divergence from the beginning/early middle of season 1 :) also shayla and gideon are alive cause i said
> 
> Edit 10/19: minor detail edits to last two chapters bc the horse theme kept nagging at me lmfao. & Thanks for all ur support guys it still continues to blow my mind <333

“Oh, sweetie, did you take a tumble?” The nurse’s voice is saccharine and squeakily pitched as she checks his chart. Elliot finds himself wanting, childishly, to spit or throw something. Who was this bitch calling _sweetie_?

But he can’t even open his eyes. Whatever they gave him knocked him out so good, he’s still having trouble coming round. The nurse shuffles on her Croc-clad feet and changes his IV, muting the TV news in the process. Thank God. He didn't know if he could take listening to much more of that.

She gives him an unassuming pat on the stomach where he lay, face-up and pale in the hospital bed, connected by tubes to the hollowly beeping machines. He feels a sickly thumping beat beneath the skin of his forehead, like his brain was making to burst out of his skull. _Ugh._

“I’m sure your mommy or daddy will be here soon, sweetie,” she drones on, obviously more for herself than for Elliot. Her shoes squeak, dull but loud, like that one stupid episode of SpongeBob –

Wait, hold on. Rewind. His _what?_

He was in the hospital, that much was clear. That Mr. Robot fucker had pushed him from the railing, and this is where he ended up. And, of course, all it took for a proper classification diagnosis was a blood test, and they had plenty of those around here.

The pieces click quickly, and Elliot realizes that’s what happened. He’d been outed by his own blood cells, his own DNA. _Fuck!_

On your twenty-first birthday, you’re supposed to check into your local government office, have your blood drawn, and receive your classification in a neat ten minutes – which was then printed on your legal documents. Elliot had gone to work instead, and a handful of years later, it’s coming back to bite him in the ass.

He was legally unclassified – or had been, until today. He’d easily kept it up by hacking through his medical records. It was actually much easier than re-writing his drug history, as most people had no desire to tamper with their classification.

A dodger, they called him: people who didn’t get their blood test as they were supposed to, for whatever reason. He supposed that he made himself that much more of a dodger, keeping it up like he had. Most people who aren’t classified get there, anyway, unless they’re living outside of modernized society. Maybe he should have been Amish.

And, to be fair, it wasn’t like Elliot _intended_ to dodge. It was a last second decision. It wasn’t premeditated, and it didn’t mean that he had anything against the 99% of people who did get classified.

He just happened to have a moral strife with the government collecting your fluids and calling you a name.

_Little,_ his records now clearly stated, as his state ID should have – and eventually will, he thinks. The government of the United States (and the state of New York) has finally branded Elliot Alderson a _Little._

It made perfect sense. He was far too weird to fall into Baseline like most everyone else – and instead, was lumped in with the minority of the population who, periodically, couldn’t physically take care of themselves. For their own bodily well-being, they had sometimes had to give up their control.

Life was a fucking beach, and Elliot was just living on it.

“Is he awake? I can wait,” the voice is sweet, gentle. Krista’s soft drawl.

“Should be, soon, if not already,” this voice is also gentle, albeit gruffer. A doctor, or hospital staff.

“Krista,” Elliot croaks, trying to wrench his eyes open. They flutter uselessly. “Fuck, dude… The fuck do you have me on? Jesus Christ.”

“You were sedated,” the doctor’s voice answers flatly. Elliot vaguely remembers that he knows it’s considered rude, by some, for Littles to swear. He doesn’t _remotely_ give a shit.

“That wasn’t our doing, the hospital. You tried to attack the EMTs in the ambulance, and so…”

There’s a silence, in which the doctor is presumably gesturing vaguely to the air. Saying uncomfortable things without saying them. Making it easier to digest, instead of using brute force. Was that pity? Or was he just being nice?

_Fuck._ Elliot has no memory of the ambulance, but the story fell in line with his history. “Sorry. Shit.”

“You were defending yourself,” the doctor says simply. That… does sort of make Elliot feel better. Whatever he had done hadn’t been malicious, certainly. He hoped he hadn’t hurt anyone.

After much trying, he finally get his eyes open. The doctor, a kindly-looking bald man in his early fifties, wears a look of full-on pity, frowning down at him. The furrow of his brow is deep with concern. Krista, however, seems slightly peeved.

He probably deserved that, as he had, effectively, lied by omission. It wasn't the first time.

She taps her foot, _tack-tack-tacking_ her flat against the shiny hospital floor. Softly, but impatiently. Elliot notes, absently, that her hair isn’t straightened today. She probably had been at home, not her office. He doesn’t know if that made him feel guilty or relieved.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Alderson?” The doctor puts on his doctorly airs. “I’ll pop back after Ms. Gordon is finished. Then you and I need to have a little chat about why you weren’t classified, sport.”

_Sweetie. Sport._ Elliot seethes internally at the pet names. He wants to go crazy, rip his IV from his arm and stomp out of here. They couldn’t drag him back, and so help them if they tried.

He was an _adult,_ with a _job_ and a _house_ and a _credit score._ He was nearing thirty, and he shouldn’t still have to deal with this shit!

But he remains calm, forces himself to chill. The fact was, with how he felt, he would probably end up right back here. He was angry, yes, but not stupid. It was useless to leave if he couldn’t hold himself up.

The doctor breezes through his vitals, and once he’s left, Krista gives Elliot the sourest expression she could muster, clearly very unhappy with him. She sits in the plush visitor’s chair, her large, expensive-looking purse beside her, and regards him for a few silent moments.

If there was anything Elliot could say about Krista, it was that she understood the value of words, as he did. And the value in not using them sometimes.

“Elliot, honey,” she says finally. She sounds so terribly weary with him, which he also probably deserved. Krista had given him so many chances, repeatedly, to not much avail. He knew he was a difficult person to try and reach – that was just the nature of him. He was sorry his disposition was affecting her.

She sighs softly, like she just can’t believe it. “Why in God’s name weren’t you classified?”

Of course, Krista was told. Not only is she his only emergency contact, she was legally part of his healthcare. She had every right to know.

But that was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Why had Elliot not simply gone to the center and had it done?

He wasn’t a label guy, for one. He didn’t think the government had any right telling him what he was or was not. And besides that – he had enough going on. Whatever brand of schizo he went to Krista for in the first place, but the also occasionally being a child on top of it? Polite decline. No, thanks.

So, he avoided. He had become really good at avoiding, over the years. No one missed what they weren’t looking for.

He can’t explain this to Krista, so he cries. It’s the instant, unbidden sort of crying that he doesn’t feel start or end, just the hot pulse of it happening.

Krista does not go to comfort him – but she doesn’t leave, either. He calms down, given a few more minutes.

“Do I still have to answer your question?” he asks, and sniffles roughly. That felt unfair, too.

“I’d prefer you to.”

Sympathy via crying didn’t work on therapists, Elliot guessed.

“Can’t,” he mutters, squeezing his eyes shut. He's tired, and he aches where they'd been poking at him.

“Doesn’t come out right. My head…” He feels as though someone had shaken his brain up, his thoughts falling after it like the fake flakes in a snow globe. It was like pure TV static in his head. Nothing was coming in right.

“Can you at least try?” Krista presses. He could. He owed her that much.

“I don’t know, Krista,” he says, resigned. He was so sick of not knowing - he was sick of fucking everything, really.

He pulls his arms up out of the blankets to scrub at his face. He very pointedly ignores that, up until this point, he had been swaddled, just like they would with an infant. It must have taken two grown people to manage that, but Elliot refuses to appreciate the craftsmanship.

“I just – it's so much, you know?” He feels ready to cry, again. He never cried in public like this, really – but the tears just seem to keep on coming, poised and ready in the back of his throat. He’s increasingly helpless in this situation, and it’s making his stomach roil uncomfortably. The lack of control makes him feel ill. 

“This, on top of your reasons for coming to see me?” Krista corrects gently.

Elliot nods. That’s the closest to the true explanation he can grapple with, for right now. God, he’d been awake for like, fifteen minutes, and life was already slapping its hairy balls across his face.

The disappointed shadow leaves Krista’s face, in her understanding. Just in time for her to deliver a blow twice as hard.

“Despite your reservations, Elliot, you do know what has to happen now.”

Krista purses her lips. He did, didn't he? He must have. He had to have.

“Don’t you?”

A long pause stretches out between them. Elliot doesn’t respond, twiddling his thumbs and peeking up at Krista through heavy lids. He has the overwhelming urge to stick a thumb in his mouth, and though he knows Krista wouldn't ever judge him, he stubbornly doesn’t entertain the desire.

Krista sighs. “You have to be registered and assigned a caregiver – which, no, you can’t wriggle out of. It’s part of my job, now, never mind that it’s the _law._ Regardless, I really think you need it. I think you have for a while.”

 **Caregiver.**

The word feels thick and foreign in Elliot’s tired, sluggish brain. No one has ever _cared_ for him in his life, and he doesn’t see why they would start now. He was an adult, and he was fine.

He wasn’t sleeping. He was addicted to morphine – for real addicted, now that the suboxone had run out. Fsociety was falling apart at his fingertips, and he lacked purpose in his work life. He was having terrible, memory-laced nightmares, waking up most nights to piss-soaked sheets. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t eat.

But he was _fine._

“Also – the morphine. You have to quit. I’m sure I don’t have to explain why.”

“I know.” He did. He would. He was sorry. “I’m done with it.”

“Honey,” Krista looks so incredibly upset, suddenly, that Elliot feels like he’s been slapped. When had she started to care about him like this? How had he missed it? Why would she bother?

“Let me _help_ you,” she pleads, looking very much her age in this moment, though she could usually pass for much younger. She looks just like somebody’s mother, though Elliot knew she was divorced and childless.

“This is obviously some kind of breaking point – almost nobody goes unclassified, and yet you did!” She gestures to him wildly, as if in total shock that he’s done such a thing. 

“That’s not normal, or okay! You need _help!_ If you’d only just let yourself be open to it, honey, it’d do you so much good. It just would, I know it would.”

A pause – followed by silence so thick, you could hear a pin drop. She sighs very, very deeply when Elliot, ever predictable, doesn’t respond.

She tucks a curl behind her ear, then abruptly changes tactics. “I have something for you.”

Elliot blinks, looking up. _That’s_ strange. They were therapist and client, and though he was fond of her, it didn’t go farther than that.

“What is it?” he asks softly.

Now it's Krista's turn to blink, hard, as if to do a double-take. That was not Elliot’s normal voice.

Elliot’s voice is a quiet monotone, but this is a voice brimming with wonder, no matter how hesitant and afraid it is.

He blinks the lingering wetness from his big green eyes, curious, and not at all aware that he’d dropped. Maybe not completely – no, that’d be difficult, in an environment such as this one. Krista knew quite a bit of Little psychology, and immediately recognized what was happening.

She smiles. He was a cute kid, even if he was a little pale right now. He even looked younger, making her wonder just how hard he usually has his face scrunched up. 

“I’m sure you know it’s customary to have a celebration for a classification announcement – some people call ‘em like, second baby showers, but I doubt you’d like that very much.” She smirks. “I skipped the balloons and flowers for you.”

Elliot waits and watches, wondering what it was that she had. He didn’t own much in general, and usually, that’s how he liked it to be. But right now, he really wants to see what she has. It’s the kind of deeply seated curiosity that drove him to hacking in the first place, though the subject is a little beneath his usual conquests.

“See?” Elliot asks. He desperately wants to know what it could be. “Please?”

“Such good manners,” Krista murmurs. “Anyway, I know you didn’t get one. I also didn’t know what animal you’d like, but I always remember loving frogs, so...”

Elliot gasps, unable to stop himself. From her purse she pulls a plastic shopping bag, and from the plastic bag she pulls a good-sized stuffed tree frog, its tags pre-removed for kids. It wears a cartoony little smile, but other than that, looks very similar to the real thing.

“Red-eyed tree frog,” she explains, fond. She gives it a little pat, and the animal does, in fact, have red eyes. Though they aren’t malicious seeming at all.

“I loved these things as a girl. We used to catch them – I didn’t grow up in New York, you see. They like the heat.”

“Froggie,” Elliot whispers. He wanted it badly, wanted to see if it was as soft as it looked. But it was very obviously hers. He skims his fingers over his lips, unconsciously, and eventually gives in to nibbling at them. It was just too calming a sensation to ignore. “Like it.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you do.” Krista beams at him, which makes him feel a warm jumble of emotion he doesn’t quite understand. “Here you are.”

And then Krista does something incredible – she hands him the frog. Elliot gives her hesitant, bashful look, though he very much does want to take her gift.

But what if he hurt it? What if she could never have it back? What if –

“Go on,” she encourages kindly. “It’s for you.”

“Me?”

Now, that just sounds impossible. But Krista is adamantly nodding her head, trying to get him to latch onto the frog. Elliot flexes his fingers, and gingerly reaches for the animal.

It may as well have been the softest thing on the planet.

“Oh,” he exhales around the fingers that had finally taken refuge in his mouth. He's awed. The fur is short and smooth, mimicking the skin of a frog, but it’s still wonderful to touch. 

“Froggie," is his final verdict. He holds the animal to his face, rubbing his cheek against it. "Good."

“Froggie is a very good name,” Krista agrees. That happens to be in the same second the doctor decides to return, looking very pleased to find Elliot latched onto his fingers, softly murmuring to a stuffed animal.

“He dropped, huh?”

Krista smiles, also feeling pretty pleased. “Like a stone.”


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a large oil painting of horses hanging in the hospital’s outtake room, and Elliot fixates on it very quickly. Three horses on a landscape, their brown bodies almost reddish in hue. One is turned towards the viewer, one has its head down in grazing, and the third simply looks away. The background is a beautiful scene that reminds Elliot of Nevada, maybe – somewhere hilly and warm.

_In computing – and more importantly, in hacking – a Trojan horse is any malware that intentionally misleads the user of its true intention. Whether that be sexy spam emails or fake advertisements used to backdoor important user information, whatever. They’re fucking pains in the ass, both for the modern hacker and the ancient Greek._

_Maybe it’s because I often name things, but I’ve taken to calling the people trying to coddle me “Trojan horses.” What do they want, really?_

_Because, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but more often than not, people do nice things for their own gain._

_They’re offering me something – doesn’t matter what it is – and I’m agreeing to take it in._

_But at what cost to me, and my city within?_

_God, I think I’m still on their fucking drugs. My head stings, like, on the inside._

_Like some kind of fucked up reverse bee got to me – and, oh God, can you imagine?_

He shifts Krista’s frog in his lap. He’s slightly heavy in his middle, stuffed with beads instead of cotton, so it’s a nice weight on his legs. Which were now, thank Christ, back in his jeans, where they fucking belonged. He hated hospital gowns almost as much as he did hospital _food,_ and he couldn’t wait to get out of here.

But they weren’t letting him, yet. Not without a “ _Temporarily Responsible Big”_ signing him out.

Which was some kind of prejudicial treatment if Elliot had ever heard it. He was an adult – his twenty-ninth birthday was close enough to touch. But nobody really seemed to be treating him that way anymore.

All it took was one little blue “L” stamped on his papers, and there went all the independence he had worked so hard for. He couldn’t even grapple with it – it didn’t yet feel like his life.

What about work? What about _Angela?_

Is he supposed to post it on the Facebook he doesn't have, like people do with biologically having kids? Or does he treat it like coming out as gay? He has no rulebook for this, and it’s anxiety-inducing as hell.

It was like whiplash, and all he could really do was sit with his Froggie and wait for Darlene to – hopefully – show. She had left him on read, so who fucking knew.

“Who’s your friend?”

So, the prodigal _(big? little?)_ sister had turned up after all. She smirks at him over the curve of her heart-shaped sunglasses, happy to see him under any circumstance, and Elliot suddenly feels like a jackass for assuming she wouldn’t come.

“Hey,” he mutters, standing, and immediately hiking his jeans up as high as they would go with the hand not occupied with Froggie. He’s uncomfortable enough as is – he really didn’t need Darlene any wiser than she was already.

Oh, he had fought hard about the diapers. Oh, he had screamed.

He wasn’t particularly proud of it; now that the moment had passed. And obviously, he hadn’t even won. But at the time, he had felt like he wasn’t being heard _at all,_ and at least shrieking at the top of his lungs got the gloved hands to recoil and _fucking stop –_ even only for a second.

Hospital policy, they said. Can’t let you go without one, they said.

Elliot didn’t like to hurt anybody, but he got close. He was ready to land a punch when they had finally plunged something in his IV, and that was the end of his protests. They called it a tantrum, in his chart – which he had already hacked through his phone, read, and gotten extremely pissy about. He petulantly deleted the word.

 _Don’t I have any rights at all?_ He thinks moodily, hyperaware of the waddle in his gait and the frog at his hip.

“I asked you who your friend was,” Darlene says, then makes a surprised little noise when Elliot reaches out to hug her. He hadn’t initiated a hug in years, but – he needed it. Real bad. She wraps him up in her arms, her hug almost painfully tight.

“Krista bought me a frog,” he mumbles into her hair, as he was pretty incapable of saying _Froggie_ out loud.

“So I see,” Darlene says, amused. She twirls one of his curls around her finger, smelling like chamomile shampoo and cigarettes. “She called me, too. Is there any particular reason I’m not in your emergency contacts?”

And wasn’t that a throwback – the last time she had played with his hair like this, he must have been twelve years old.

“Fsociety,” he murmurs, because that was the truth. If he was hurt doing something illegal, there was no reason she had to go down, too.

Everything about Darlene is _big_ : big hair, big voice, big fur coats. Big personality, one that took up a room and made people sit up and pay attention. Elliot sighs in her arms. He didn’t feel so meek, with his sister around.

“Fuck Fsociety,” Darlene announces, giving him a squeeze. “I’m hungry, and I hate hospitals. How do we get out of this joint?”

“How’d you manage to dodge all this time?” Darlene asks him, nursing the last of her McFlurry. She points her plastic spoon at him. “How did you dodge _me?”_

She had taken him out for happy meals, of all things, after they escaped from the hospital. Then Darlene had promptly declared they were going to the store.

Elliot did not want to know what she planned to purchase at said store, but he could imagine. He also had a suspicion she wasn’t letting him go home alone tonight.

And… it was fine. He could do Darlene. She didn’t count, even if she was a Big and a Caregiver, and therefore now his mortal enemy.

She often joked that they must have read the test wrong, but Elliot knew better. Darlene could be gentle and loving when she wanted to be. Even as kids, she had been the most compassionate teenage girl he’d ever met. Even Angela could get catty, back then, but never Darlene.

Darlene would make a fantastic mother, if she ever decided to become one. Which, of course, Elliot wouldn’t blame her for skipping. He doesn’t have any fond motherly memories, either.

He sort of wants to hold her hand, because the train is much scarier today than he ever remembers it being before. It seems much, much bigger, too. Every metallic clank is deafening, and he keeps thinking about instances of subway cars getting derailed, all the patrons inside going up in a fiery blaze beneath the city.

_Judge me if you want, but the subway is a quickly moving tin tube, with lots of weird, loud people. It makes harsh metallic sounds._

_It’s intimidating when I_ don’t _feel three years old._

Climbing in her lap would be even better, but Elliot was a realist. They were almost exactly the same height, and on the subway seats, it would be a weird squeeze. So, he sits, unvoicing and uncomfortable, and the train eventually arrives where they apparently need to be.

She takes his hand automatically, and _that_ was how he knew she’d make a good mom. That kind of mind-reading just couldn’t be taught.

“What size?”

_I can’t fucking believe she just asked me that._

_Why don’t I just turn around and leave, go home, and pretend this never happened, you ask? Because, for the moment, I can’t. Until I figure out how to scrub that fucking L from my records, I’m supremely stuck. I can’t do anything but watch my dignity slip away._

_Fuck._

“C’mon, don’t be like that,” she mutters, nudging him with her hip where he sulks beside her, arms crossed over his frog in the middle of a Target.

At least she wasn’t showering him with pet names – he couldn’t even believe he could call that a win, at this point. It had been what, twelve hours? And his entire life was different.

Go fucking figure.

He leans against the happy red cart, hating its sunny disposition. Nothing should be allowed to be happy when his _kid sister_ had just asked him his _diaper size._

“I’m just gonna buy like, three packages and some duct tape, if you don’t tell me.”

“Why bother?” he asks dryly. “Why act like anything’s different, Darlene? I’m still me.”

Darlene’s face drops, and Elliot is hit with a boulder of guilt, square in the center of his chest. He grips his frog, which he hasn’t set down for a moment.

_She had wanted to do this for me._

_She wants to take care of me._

_Why?_

“Elli –“

_Elli._ The only people who had ever called him _Elli_ were her, and their mother before he hit the age of eight. Then Edward was diagnosed with cancer, things went to shit, and their mother almost stopped talking to him entirely.

He shivers. He’s wet, and he doesn’t know how it happened, or what to do about it. He doesn’t want to have this conversation at all, let alone in the Little aisle of their local Target. He holds his frog harder – oh, he hoped he wasn’t hurting him accidentally.

Darlene’s still holding the shiny, shrunk-plastic packaging. _24 diapers,_ he reads, though the letters are upside down to him. _Suitable for Littles 140-180 lbs. #1 choice in hospitals!_

There’s a man about his age on the side of the packaging, grinning brightly, like he just can’t wait to shit his pants. Elliot rolls his eyes.

Darlene flails for her words, but Elliot is patient. “Elli, just – God, you’re so fucking frustrating, you know that? Is it genetic? Am I as bad, or are you just an asshole?”

Elliot snorts. “Both.”

“Shut up,” she says, and something about her tone makes him knock it off. “Listen to me.”

“I know about the morphine, okay? I know, in about two days, you’re going to be shitting yourself when you’re so strung out on withdrawls you don’t know your own name. I’m not fucking stupid, even though you seem to think you’re the only smart Alderson spawn.”

“I –“ He surely didn’t think she was _stupid._

“Shuddup,” she tells him. “Lemme finish. I’ve been sitting on this for like, five years.”

He listens.

“You – You fucking deserve a little happiness, Elliot. Which I really thought you would have _realized_ by now, but you keep fucking up your own life like you think you deserve to suffer.” She throws her hands in the air, still holding the diapers.

“You’re so… exasperating. I know why, and I get it, but it doesn’t make it less true. You can’t help yourself right now, Elliot, and I know you gotta realize that. Maybe in a couple months, when you get on some kind of schedule, with your own caregiver –“

He goes to open his mouth again, but Darlene sharply holds a finger to her lips.

“Which you will be getting. Because I’m not watching you kill yourself again – remember when we did that? Remember when I almost lost you, because of your stupid fucking stubbornness?”

He did. He’d never forget.

“Okay,” Darlene says, gesturing to him. She's even breathing a bit hard. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

“I think those should fit,” is the only thing he murmurs.

Darlene smooths back her hair, adjusts her sunglasses, and throws the package into the happy red cart. She takes his hand.

“Next aisle,” she announces, and on they move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> elliot's painting is Grazing Horses IV, or The Red Horses, by Franz Marc


	3. Chapter 3

It only takes Shayla one look at the way he cowers behind Darlene. He doesn’t even get a second to _try_ and pretend.

Shayla’s people-smart, the way Elliot is not. She could look at anybody and tell you exactly what they were feeling, thinking, desiring. And although she couldn’t keep up with the Aldersons’ dramatic hacking sequences, she was intelligent, and very observant. Much more so than people gave her credit for – sometimes, Elliot included.

“You’re Little? Since when?” is her drawled greeting. She’d been smoking, and the sharp scent of weed drapes around her like a cannabis cloak. “And hey, Darlene. Been a minute, huh?”

“Hey, Shayla,” Darlene says, halfway into unlocking Elliot’s door. “It has been a while. You good?”

Meanwhile, Elliot is busy trying to get as far behind Darlene as he possibly can – the last person he wants to talk to like this is his ex-girlfriend. And he feels, suddenly, the same way he felt in the hospital, with Krista and Froggie. Mentally distant from the world around him, yet somehow very intimidated by it all.

He’s going to have to Google all this Little shit, isn’t he? He badly regrets throwing out the hospital hand-outs, shit. Maybe he was too stubborn.

Was he just going to drop whenever? Was he ever going to have any kind of adult life again?

“I’m good,” Shayla deeply nods her head. “He’s Little?”

Darlene gives her a pained smile. “Yup. Just classified _today._ ”

“We probably shouldn’t have fucked, then,” Shayla says abruptly. It might have been awkward, but she’s snickering. Darlene is suddenly tense, protective. Elliot is unsure as to why.

But he finds himself still really liking the sound of Shayla’s laugh, despite everything. Her deep, rumbly laugh – Shayla hardly ever _giggled._

_Personally, I believe Shayla Nico exists on a different wavelength than the rest of us. And a much better one, at that._

And though it wasn’t technically illegal unless there was true abuse, Big-on-Little relations were generally frowned upon. Shayla obviously finds it funny, though, and there’s some kind of relief in that. _She_ didn’t think he was suddenly from Mars.

“Fuck, the morphine,” Shayla murmurs, as her laughter dies away. For this, though, she seems a lot more guilty.

The first rule of dealing, in Shayla’s book, was no kids of any kind. It was also pretty common knowledge that most drugs hit Littles harder – and she did not want to think about a baby Elliot getting fucked up, strung out or overdosed on her product. “I definitely can’t sell to you anymore, man.”

“As of right now, Elliot’s going sober,” Darlene replies. She unlocks the door and nudges it open, unloading her shopping-bag burdens. She starts to lead Elliot inside. “Listen, it’s been a long day. We’ll see you, Shayla.”

“Yeah, got you,” Shayla says easily. She finally gets a peek at Elliot, who was holding a green stuffed thing of some sort, hiding his face in it as he continued to try and disappear into Darlene. She flashes him a brilliant smile, cheekily showing off her gap. “Try and get some rest for me, squirt.”

“And remember that I have Flipper tonight!” she calls behind them. “Don’t freak out ‘cause your dog’s gone!”

***

He needs to hack.

Like an itch beneath his skin, Elliot needs to fully understand this situation he’s inexplicably landed himself in. He’ll fucking scratch his way inside if need be. He needs to get fully inside the issue, needs to peel back its display and poke inside the code. Otherwise, it would sit, and he would stew, and they would get nowhere.

_Hacking._

_It’s an addiction, just like any other._

_I need my fucking fix – quick._

Darlene shuts the door behind them, taking in the scene in front of her. Elliot’s apartment was so sad.

She has the unbidden thought that they should move in together, because at least her place was _furnished._ Elliot had his mattress with no frame, the one sagging pleather couch, and one half-broken coffee table. And nothing else.

No kitchen table or washing machine. No crib or toddler bed. No fucking curtains on the windows, or blinds, or anything. It was just the bare glass, exposed for the sunlight to stream in at ass o’clock and wake them both up.

Darlene rubs her eyes at the sight. It was only early evening, but he made her so tired.

How did he _live_ like this? And _why_? She knew for a fact Allsafe paid enough for him to get a fucking _bedframe_ , for Christ’s sake. His terminal setup is pristine, but other than that, the apartment very well could have been abandoned.

And Darlene quickly realizes it had been wise to stop off at the store – Elliot had exactly one bottle, shoved in a dusty cabinet and half-cracked, missing its nipple. She promptly drops it in the trash.

There was nothing else to indicate he even knew his class, though that was dumb, and despite how he acted, Elliot wasn’t. Also, it would have been pretty much impossible.

There was no way not to know – even if you didn’t have the words, you couldn’t possibly miss a drop. He was just actively choosing to ignore it.

_Oh, Elliot…_

He can nearly hear her thoughts about how sad looking his apartment is. But he doesn’t care – and really doesn’t care about shit like that in general. He needs to get to his terminal before he explodes.

He makes a beeline for his monitors. But –

A hand captures his wrist, and he stills instantly. Darlene’s hands are soft, delicate, and feminine, and he could easily rip himself away. But he turns, catches sight of her face. Catches the plea that’s already on her lips, concern overflowing in her big, deep-set eyes that look just like his. He doesn’t move.

“I won’t stop you,” she says. Her voice is gentle – she’s treading _very_ lightly, here. “I’d never do that to you. But just – come get dressed, first. Okay?”

Elliot gapes, his mouth opening uselessly, like he was mimicking a goldfish. He doesn’t know what to say or how to say it, like his power to form eloquent sentences had gone up in smoke. He has no reply that gets him out easily. He either did as she said – or they fought about it.

He didn’t want to fight. Not with Darlene. Maybe with the world, but never with Darlene.

He hugs his frog. “Okay.”

“ _Okay?”_ Darlene repeats, dubious. She had expected something – anything – in protest. Not “ _okay,”_ spoken softly from above a stuffed frog.

_Brave new world_ , she thinks. She won’t push her good luck for another second, she decides, and holds out her hand, inviting Elliot to join her. No need to make him feel pressured.

And honestly, Elliot expects it to be awful. He expects to hate every single second of it.

But then again, he also expects her to –

_Fuck, I don’t know. Carry me around? Shake a rattle in my face? How do people treat real babies?_

He didn’t know – he had exactly zero experience with children. But, blessedly, none of those things happen. It’s sort of odd to see her so quiet, though, as she usually filled the silence with stories from whatever her current escapade was. Silence – comfortable silence – was more Elliot’s deal, and she was clearly respecting that.

He expected all respect to go out the window, but it hadn’t. He loves her for that, among other all the other things.

“Here, I –“ She looks vaguely flustered to broach the subject. At least he wasn’t the only one. “I made this for you. Here.”

He looks at the object being pushed into his hands, squinting down hard, as if confused. Like he had never seen a baby bottle before.

“You’re skinny,” is her only explanation, before she’s left him to his own devices, turned back to pillage the Target bags some more.

_Here’s a thought experiment: pretend you’re me, and your kid sister has just handed you a bottle full of milk. What do you do?_

 _There’s nothing wrong with it: it’s not laced or poisoned. But it’s a_ baby _bottle. Which you’re not even sure if you remember how to use._

_It’s like the fucking Trolley Problem – no good answers, but it happens anyway._

And that may have been, but in the end, his body betrays him. He gets thirsty – Darlene takes approximately one million years to do whatever it is she’s doing. He’s thirsty, and there’s not much else to entertain him.

He pops it in his mouth.

It’s like milk, but sweeter, and though the taste is extremely foreign, he decides not to question it.

_Don’t cry over strange milk._

He drinks it. In fact – he finishes it, and feels weirdly better once it’s empty. Soothed by the _tip-pull-drink-swallow_ ritual of it, which was much more involved than using a cup. More to focus on, less reason to get distracted by anything else.

“Okay, kid,” Darlene murmurs. “C’mere.”

Elliot tenses. He expects this to be the worst.

He expects it to be like the hospital. He expects end up fighting with her. He expects pleading, yelling, and tears. He expects it to be a whole thing.

And he’s wrong. He has never been so happy to be wrong in his life. Darlene has him stripped, changed, and re-dressed in two minutes or less – he has no time to linger on it, and it’s fantastic.

“Lotsa.. experience?” he asks softly, sitting up to watch her put things away. His drawers are promptly being reorganized before his eyes – and fine, as long as he didn’t have to do it.

Darlene nods. “I looked after this kid, back when you were in college. Mom needed help with the bills, and I needed a fridge to raid after school. I think he was older than you, though.”

“Older,” Elliot repeats stupidly. He shifts, still unused to the feeling of being diapered. He's really struck by all these new - _old?_ \- sensations, and it captures his entire attention, for a moment.

“Yeah,” Darlene says. “Like, five or six? You’re pretty Little, y’know.”

He snaps his head up. No, he didn’t know. He didn't know shit. “What?”

Darlene blinks. “C’mon, Elliot. Don’t fu – don’t mess with me. You know what I mean.”

He puts away the fact that she intentionally didn’t swear for later, because no, he _didn’t._ Was that not clear? He barely knew what the hell was happening with him, let alone everyone else.

“Damn,” Darlene mutters. He really did need to do some research, then.

She shakes her head, her hair swishing with the movement. Elliot watches it, instead of her face, slightly mystified by what it must be like to have long hair.

“I don’t know how you passed high school biology, man, but yeah,” she says. “When the hospital sends you your results, your age range’ll come with it. I’m betting on like, two or three, or maybe younger. Aren’t you?”

“I bullshitted my way through biology,” Elliot mutters. He had honestly never thought it would apply to him.

“Yeah, obviously,” Darlene tuts. She plucks the empty bottle from where he’d abandoned it, and instead of tossing it in the sink, take the time to slink back to her bags, claim the dish soap, and begin to wash it.

“Bigs, Middles, Littles,” she says over the sound of the water. “You’re supposed to get the rundown at the classification center.”

“Well, you know I didn’t,” he says. He rubs his eyes, and Darlene watches him do it, smirking. Bottles do it every time.

“Sleepy?”

“ _No.”_ It wasn’t even eight o’clock, yet.

She holds her hands up in mock defense, setting the bottle out to dry. A bright blue cylindrical alien on his off-white countertop. “Fine. Where’s your laptop? I wanna watch a movie.”

“Under the desk,” he replies. “Wait, you’re not gonna...”

“Force you? No.” She shakes her head. “Who would that help?”

And now that the option is gone, Elliot immediately wants it back. He’s aware that this is his incoming toddler brain, but he still doesn’t want Darlene occupied elsewhere. It’s not logic – it’s pure, insatiable jealousy, and for no good reason. She wasn’t even _going_ anywhere, and he knew it.

“No movie,” he says, and Darlene snaps her head up. She was going to have to get better at reading him – a drop shouldn’t be able to sneak up on her like that.

“No?” she asks. “No computer either, then.”

“No,” Elliot agrees. He rocks on his socked heels, absently chewing at the pad his thumb. He holds Froggie by the hand, and if he were as small as he felt, it would’ve dangled to the floor.

“No, nope,” Darlene says suddenly, startling him. “That’s a bad habit we’re not entertaining.” She promptly scoops something from a lingering shopping bag, removes its packaging, and gives it a rinse under the tap.

“Ick, Elliot. No fingers,” she explains, and when his mouth opens in protest, she pops the binky in.

And the plasticky bobble is an intrusion, but not an unpleasant one. It was so not unpleasant; he decides not to spit it out. Darlene smirks at the little victory.

“Well, I’m pooped,” she tells him, laying it on thick with an exaggerated yawn. “I’m going to bed – and you are, of course, permitted to stay up as long as you’d like. You _big responsible adult_ , you.”

And maybe that’s a little unfair, but it’s worth the cute little scrunch in Elliot’s brow. _Huh?_

“I’m just kidding, baby,” she says. “Let’s lay down, before I confuse you to death.”

Elliot hugs his frog. The most he had gotten out of that was _bed_ and _lay down,_ and that was enough for him. He removes his binky with his free hand. “Kay. Nite-nite?"

“Yeah, nite-nite. Let's go to bed.”


	4. Chapter 4

Three days pass.

On the morning of the fourth day, Elliot wakes up screaming.

Darlene sits up in bed, startled awake and instantly reaching for him. Dawn is just beginning to seep in through the windows – thought the apartment is still comfortably dark, because of the thick curtains - that _definitely_ hadn’t been there when he passed out.

_Oh, God, my head…_

“What’s wrong!” is her panicked response, and Elliot has no idea. She fumbles for him, but he wriggles away, utterly confused – and completely terrified.

He had no idea, period.

He doesn’t know what’s happening, who or where or what he is. Who is she? What’s going on? He couldn’t tell you, and it’s making his heartbeat rapid, his whole body shaking with fight-or-flight. He stops screaming, but frightened tears fill his eyes and stream down his cheeks.

He’s freaking out, man.

“Oh, baby, oh no,” Darlene murmurs, holding him at in awkward, half-sat-up cuddle.

He sobs hysterically, gripping her shirt, and really isn’t aware that he’s doing it – he’s so far away, trying to assess what the hell had happened.

It had been more than a day. That he knew – things were different. His clothes were different, the sheets were different. Darlene – _fuck, okay, it’s only Darlene_ – was different, she was – was holding him. She was – _what the fuck?_ – cradling him like a baby.

Oh.

_Oh._

He pukes.

He wriggles away from her, leans over the bed, and pukes. It’s nothing but bile and spit, but he heaves, hoping to get rid of the queasy feeling that follows. Close, but no cigar, and his vision sways unhelpfully.

“Fuck, Elliot,” Darlene murmurs, and it’s not angry, or even annoyed. It’s _worried._ She sounds _scared_ for him. She reaches for him, rubbing large circles into his back with the palm of her hand.

He burrows into her thoughtlessly, instinctively, because that’s the way their world has always worked.

He and Darlene – they could hurt everybody else, again and again, but never each other. If their childhood didn’t drive them apart, nothing could.

Elliot cries some more, but after a gasp or two, he gets it together. Darlene has managed to wrangle him properly, and she pets his hair, never losing her worried frown.

“What happened?” he asks in a timid, wet voice. He nurses his thumb, frown nearly as deep as Darlene’s.

And, of course, that’s the same moment Angela decides to knock on the door.

Of course, it fucking was – and she wasn’t going away anytime soon, it seemed.

Her knocking is frantic, interspersed with worried, one-sided conversation that Darlene can’t quite make out from here. Elliot makes a panicked noise, hollow-sounding in his throat.

_No._

_No no no._

_Not Angela. Not right now._

“I’ll take care of it,” Darlene soothes. “You stay with Froggie, and I’ll be two seconds.”

Elliot doesn’t have his words – they’ve flown coop, for the moment. A few token tears streak down his cheeks, but he nods. He presses Froggie to his face – and he does it all automatically, like he’d been doing it for years.

_Wait. How does she know his name?_

He had never told her what he named the frog, and he remembers avoiding it explicitly.

How many fucking days had it been? What had he said that he now can’t remember?

He buries his face in Froggie’s neck, heaving a shaky breath. At least he knew who Froggie was.

_Don’t do morphine._

_But if you do anyway, don’t ever, ever stop._

“And Gideon’s just worried sick –“ Angela is abruptly cut off by the door swinging open. Darlene stands in the front room of Elliot’s apartment, not wearing any pants, and looking quite worn for the wear.

“Come in,” she mutters, gesturing. “Might as well bite the bullet.”

Angela stutters, her perfectly stenciled eyebrows grazing her hairline, but does as she’s told. It’s more of a legend than scientific fact, but many people would swear up and down that good Caregivers could make even Baselines sit up and listen.

Angela agrees, as she putters inside behind Darlene.

And Angela, despite her resistance to doing anything illegal, was a hacker like all the rest. She quickly scans the apartment – and takes in everything that’s different about it since the last time she had elbowed her way in, pushing past a protesting Elliot.

There's real dishes in the sink. Heavy curtains draped over the windows. Little things that significantly improve the overall aura of the place. It almost felt like somebody was living here, now, and Angela reasons Darlene had finally reached the end of her patience towards his sad-sack living conditions.

But the real point of interest is Elliot himself, sitting up on his still frame-less bed. His new sheets are patterned with red and yellow racecars, and he has his eyes firmly shut, holding a stuffed frog up to his face.

She looks closer. His pajamas, what little she can see of them, are patterned with Snoopy. There’s a discarded binky by the side of his face, propped up in the pillows. He grips his stuffed frog way too tightly, like it’s going to up and disappear on him at any second.

Angela splutters. “He’s - ?”

“Little, yeah,” Darlene says, rifling through the cabinets to start Elliot’s bottle.

She doesn’t bother trying to get decent – if there was anyone she didn’t care about seeing her panties, it was Angela.

They – the three amigos, for a brief time – all used to sleep on the same twin mattress as kids, in the Mosses' basement, to escape the heat during summer vacation. There was nothing she hadn’t seen.

“So if that Gideon fucker wants to fire him, tell him it’s discriminatory treatment and we’ll sue that whole place,” Darlene snips.

“What?” Angela asks, shocked. “Gideon would never! He loves Elliot – he likes him more than he likes me! Everyone just wanted to make sure he was okay…”

“He’s fine,” Darlene’s tone is clipped. “He was just, you know, detoxing from morphine. Which you let him get hooked on. Again.”

Angela’s face fills with hurt. _Okay, ouch._ “He’s an adult, Darlene.”

Darlene laughs, bitter, and waves the half-finished bottle in her face. It’s got just the powdered formula inside, and when she shakes it, a numerous amount of free-falling flecks dot against Angela’s dark pantsuit.

It’s satisfying, and she flicks it again. “No, Angela. He’s not.”

Angela deflates completely, guilt ridden. It gives Darlene a twisted sense of satisfaction – Angela saw Elliot nearly every day, since Darlene had been busy, occupied with Fsociety. She had said nothing about his deteriorating state, even though Darlene would have dropped everything, as she was doing now. She had ignored it as much as Elliot did – but Darlene can’t be mad at Elliot, really.

So, Angela gets all her boiling anger, all the rage that feels unfair to throw at Elliot.

Elliot, who then whimpers, and effectively takes most of Darlene’s attention. She loses her fight – because, if she’s being honest, there never was one. There hadn’t been in years. This Angela shit didn’t matter - Angela had been weird on them for a long time, anyway. Darlene didn’t know her anymore.

“I’ma coming, baby,” she shoots in Elliot’s direction, and the look on Angela’s face is priceless.

Darlene starts the microwave, and for a moment, there’s only the sound of the warming bottle.

“I’m sorry,” Angela tries.

Darlene laughs. She’s disgusted, truly. “Don’t tell _me_ that.”

Angela flails. Elliot didn’t tell her anything, that was the truth, but she knows Darlene won’t take that as an answer. She didn’t know he was on morphine again – she genuinely thought he had cut that shit out after he started seeing the therapist.

But she did know he was slipping, again. She should have been there, and that was also true.

“Leave, Angela,” Darlene says, tone clipped. “He needs to be fed and changed, and besides the fact that he’d be embarrassed to have you here – I don’t fucking want you here anymore, myself. You tell Gideon, or whoever, that Elliot’s taking a vacation. Or have them fire him – I don’t care! But he’s occupied until further notice, capiche?”

She’s nearly spitting by the end. She just might have slapped Angela, had she been closer.

Angela blinks, turns, and leaves. The door slams behind her - her trojan had been denied.

Elliot starts to sob, frightened further by the sound.

“I know,” Darlene says, instantly gentle. She removes the bottle from the microwave, gently pushes the door closed to avoid the slam. “Here I am. Are you hungry? Wet?”

_Confused._

“What happened?” he croaks, when he calms. He reaches for the bottle.

“You detoxed,” she says simply, handing it over, but not letting go until he has it in both hands. “Welcome to sobriety.”

She climbs back in bed – Elliot figures it still must be early, for her to do that. He can’t tell, but he knows he’ll fall asleep again, anyway. He’s deeply, bone-achingly tired, like he had run a marathon – or seven.

“You were out for two days,” she explains, running gentle fingers over his scalp as he drinks. It’s nice, so he allows it. 

"Just out completely – dead to the world. Day three you came up, and you were okay. Talking. But then you puked, and you were gone again. You couldn’t even walk. I can’t pick you up all the way, so I had to call Romero.”

Elliot shudders – he hates the thought, but of everyone, he's relieved it had been Romero to see him like this. They weren’t exactly friends, but Elliot trusted the wizened Black man. They had never discussed such things, but Elliot could easily see him being classed as a Caregiver.

“He has adult children; did you know that?” Darlene murmurs, still stroking his hair. “We got to chatting. I didn’t realize how little I knew about the guy, man. He’s also long divorced, but still.”

She laughs, gentle. It goes unspoken, but they both know Fsociety is over. Darlene wouldn’t be here if the whiterose meeting had been realized – and it hadn’t been realized, because he was currently indisposed. It was over, and he was to blame.

“No,” Elliot says softly. “But I bet he’s a good dad.”

He finishes his bottle, and Darlene sits up. He expects her to leave the bed, but instead finds himself, suddenly, being pulled to lay with his head on her shoulder, his body turned in against her chest.

"I bet he is, too." She gives him a few solid thumps on the back, and he burps.

_Jesus Christ, she didn’t just –_

But she did. And then he’s released, like it was nothing. Like it was _normal._ At Elliot’s flummoxed expression, Darlene’s jaw drops.

“Oh, shit! You don’t remember!” she covers her mouth, half-gasping, half-laughing. “I’m so sorry, Elliot, I should have asked. But it’s become, like, habit. You were totally out of it.”

He’s almost laughing, too. And it had felt good to get rid of the extra air. “S’okay.”

“And your results came,” she says softly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. She wordlessly replaces his thumb, which he can’t remember ever putting in his mouth, with a pacifier.

“Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to read it yourself?” she murmurs. Elliot’s eyes droop, and he focuses more on the cadence of her words, rather than their meanings.

“Tell m’,” he whispers behind the plastic. He hugs Froggie where he’s smushed between them – an Elliot-Froggie-Darlene sandwich. He's going to be asleep very, very soon.

“Elliot Alderson, Little,” she intones from memory. “Age ranges fourteen months to three years. And then it had some class information, and the names of a couple places that can hook you up with a caregiver, when you’re ready.”

He sniffles. 14 _months?_ Christ, that was practically embryonic.

“Yeah, kinda young,” she agrees. “But that’s okay. I love you just the way you are. But you know that, right?”

And that should have been weird. It shouldn’t have felt right. But it just makes him feel good. “Yeah. I love you, too."

She gives him a squeeze. “Yeah, kid, I know it. Try and sleep some more, okay?”

“Okay.”

He sleeps, and Darlene tiptoes away, to mop up his mostly-bile puke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I have some personal grievances with how Angela, supposedly his best friend, uses Elliot during the series. -_-


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy folks! don't worry i won't leave ya hanging on this story :D  
> pls enjoy!

> _Inner Conflict of the Classified Little_
> 
> _Marie Donnelly, PhD in Little and Child Psychology_
> 
> _The classified Little is a different beast than the unclassified or undeveloped Little, such as children who are on the developmental path to becoming Little as adults._
> 
> _The classified Little is as dependent on their society as they are themselves or their caregiver, and once the illusion of “normalcy” is broken by classification, breakdowns, or more colloquially, 'tantrums', are more likely._
> 
> _Don’t be dissuaded if your Little doesn’t want to cuddle the second their classification is realized, as transition is an important step for the happiness and well-being of both you, and the little one you’ve just decided to take under your care…_

Elliot has all of Marie Donnelly's life open under her article: her credit card numbers splayed in bright white code in the Gnome running underneath the Chrome tab open to her piece. The symbols glitter like jewels against the stark dark of his Linux kernel.

He also has her address, date of birth, wife’s name, maiden name, children’s names, and social security number. He could ruin her with two clicks of his mouse, but that had never been his intention.

He doesn’t want to hurt her in any way – he wants to know what she knows, as much as he possibly can.

A simple Google search hadn’t cut it: he needed to dig deeper, getting dirtier. The general information – things he probably should have put in the vault a decade ago – was easy enough:

_A Little is generally defined as an adult human being with the biological inclination to behave as though going through the developmental stages of someone their junior, usually between the ages of 0 and 17. Littles are recommended to spend most of their life in_ headspace _, but most, when stable, can lead healthy adult lives outside of it..._

_\- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia_

> **Headspace (redirected) –** _The “headspace”, in relation to human beings, is the mental regression experienced by those classified as Little. Falling into headspace is known colloquially as a “drop”. Littles are medically recommended to spend most of life in headspace, though most do not._ Skip _to anti-discrimination laws…_

A couple of keystrokes, and it was all right there. He was Little, and the way he felt in the hospital was part of headspace. Easy. But he still felt a needling in the back of his brain – he needed more.

He needed a _hack._

_Marie Cecelia Donnelley-White_

_b. July 5th, 1979_

_race/nationality: Cuban/Hispanic_

_height: 5'7", weight: 145 lbs, eyes: brown,_

_SOCIAL SECURTIY NUMBER: 743-800-1231_

_MAJOR CREDIT CARD: VISA_

_BANK OF E PASSWORD: BOBMARLEYFAN01_

_Married: Y. Andrea Lilian Donnelley, 2003_

_Degrees in: Little and Child Psychology_

_Graduated: NYU, 2010_

_Children: Two Littles, biologically twenty-four and thirty-one, Little ranges 2 to 4 and 8 to 12, respectively. One biological toddler, 3._

_Status: feeling… humble_ _😊_

If there was ever something Elliot Alderson didn’t understand, he hacked his way through it. Since he was eight years old, he got through his problems by tearing through code at terrifying speed, consuming information like some kind of demented Pac-Man, eating nuggets of people’s lives like the little white pellets.

And if he was Pac-Man, Marie Donnelley was the ghost that ended the game.

He had never heard of her – but as he dove, swam through all the Little information the world wide web had to offer, her name came up again and again. It was like literally she wrote the book on being Little, with how many informational articles used her research as reference.

She had two Littles of her own, as well as a biological toddler. Elliot wondered how she got a second of silence – she and her wife must both have had a saint’s patience.

He also wondered, pointedly, what the hell her motivation is. And with that, of course, he hoped to God her kids weren’t being hurt in any way – that they were loved, not used to further her career, or to research and poke at.

And maybe that was paranoid, yeah, it probably was. But Elliot was a hacker. Hackers were paranoid by design – they trusted nothing and no one, and they hated coincidences.

Nothing about a computer happened outside of when it was supposed to, no sequence fell out of time, unless something was wrong. When a hacker's job was going smoothly, there should have been no such thing as an anomaly, accident, or chance.

_Hackers love when things go smoothly. They love routine and when things go their way. And they throw tantrums when it doesn’t._

_Sounds familiar…_

But the Marie woman kept coming up, enough times that it had become impossible to ignore. She caused an itch deep inside his brain – something wasn’t right.

He intended to find out what, of course. He intended to tear Mrs. Marie Donnelly limb from informational limb. But his diaper was wet.

Which was, without a doubt, the worst part of it all. There was a reason he had fought so hard: his control already sucked ass, what with the frequency, and consistency, of the bedwetting. He knew, if he allowed it (or if it happened against his will) it would make him reliant on others for something as basic as staying clean. Like a real toddler.

And it had. He was, for the most part, helpless in that area. Which he had expected – though would probably never stop being sour about, even if he were trying, somewhat, to come to terms.

That didn’t mean it was easy, though. But fortunately, Darlene seemed to be able to read minds. His, at least.

“Hey, Elli,” she says, approaching him like you might a small animal you’re trying to capture (or, probably more accurately, rescue). Her hands are open to him – she means him no harm, ever, and is trying to make that crystal.

Because even though he _knows_ Darlene would never hurt him, he doesn’t always believe her – or himself. Her Trojan could be anything – sisterly love in the name of revenge, or backstabbing, or plain anger.

But it wasn’t, and he knew that. She just had to give him a reminder every so often, so he didn’t forget.

It’d been just under two weeks of her being in and out of his apartment – he was very, very rarely left alone, and never while Little. And yes, she took good care of him, but she was still _Darlene._ Still his sister, despite somewhat acting as a parent. They bickered and ticked each other off even if she did have to feed and dress him sometimes.

They’d both be happier next week when Elliot’s consult with the Caregiving Center was scheduled for. Once he got someone full time, Darlene could go back to…. Darlene-ing, and he’d get his space back.

Which, he was already looking forward to. Not that he didn’t love his sister, but they had lived together for 18 years already, and she wasn’t exactly unnoticeable. And she was loud, no matter how hard she tried to quiet for his sake. Enough was enough.

“Yeah?” he asks, rubbing at his tired eyes in the blueish whiteish monitor light. He’d been at this for hours, and still the itch known as Marie Donnelly bugged around in his grey matter. He hits lightly at his temples – _shoo, fly, shoo._

_I never wondered why they called things going wrong with computers “bugs”. They’re just as annoying as the real thing._

“It’s time to take a break, okay?”

It was. It definitely was. His eyes stung and his ass ached from sitting, unmoving, for so many hours. But when Darlene said _break time,_ she meant _Little time,_ and Elliot was less happy about that.

“No!”

Darlene stops dead in her tracks, turns to stare down her baby bro. That had not been the response she was expecting – despite it all, Elliot was generally a quiet, content baby. Once he got down there.

“Why not?” she asks simply, gently, her hands still held out to him in the comforting gesture. And Elliot promptly bursts into tears.

“Working!” he tries to explain, voice shaking through his sobs. His face quickly turns pink as the hot, stinging tears freefall, fat dots plunking down across his keyboard. He covers his eyes. “Hacking! Busy! Not Little!”

“Well, you don’t sound very Big,” she murmurs, inching ever closer. “And you’ve been at this for forever. Aren’t you tired?”

He was. It was late afternoon, which meant nap time, and as much as he fought it, he did need it. Not only did his biology make him more tired – he had issues with insomnia, outside of being Little. A pick-me-up in the daytime stopped him from being a crabby little asshole all day long. 

“Not Little!” he cries, and whatever small bit of adultness is left in him shakes its head, aware of how ridiculous he’s being. He just couldn’t stop it, despite knowing better. His shoulders shake, and there’s a disgusting amount of snot on his face.

_Like Alice tumbling into the rabbit hole…_

_Down…_

_Down…._

_Down…_

“Oh, okay, I understand. That’s just fine,” Darlene says, and turns her back on him and his still-flickering terminal.

Elliot cuts the crying entirely and all at once, he’s so shocked. That was it? He got away with it!

And he almost turns back to his monitors –

“But, y'know, only Little boys get their Froggies.”

He snaps his head up, still teary-eyed, and Darlene is cradling Froggie in her arms, whispering down to him – which he probably didn’t like very much! He’s not a _baby_ – and if he were, he'd be in an egg. And you can’t cradle frog eggs, they’re much too round and slippery. Therefore, Froggie wouldn’t like being held that way.

Duh. Didn’t Darlene know that?

“I’m sorry you’re not getting any cuddles,” she tells the frog forlornly. “But Elliot insists that he’s Big, and what would a Big want with a stuffed froggie?”

Elliot sniffles. “Give Froggie,” he demands wetly. She wasn’t holding him right, and he preferred Elliot’s hugs, anyway. “Give.”

He holds out his arms, nearly flailing with impatience. “Give.”

“Does that mean it’s break time?”

Elliot doesn’t know, or care, what that really means. “Give,” he repeats, sniffling. His voice drops from upset and irritated into soft, pleading, sad. He really does want Froggie, now, whatever he’d been doing on the computer before be damned.

He give her a particularly puppy-esque look. “Please?”

And Darlene just can’t torment him any longer – she hands over the frog.

“Come,” she says firmly, and holds out a hand. “I know you’re wet – you’ve been squirming in place for half an hour.”

A few tears dribble down Elliot’s cheeks, but luckily, Froggie is there to soak them up.

“Don’t like,” he whispers, though he takes Darlene’s hand. When he stands, he’s wobbly on his feet, but Darlene steadies him, guides him to the bed without incident, somehow. He hates how good she is at this, though he knew that was unfair.

She just seemed to _know_ everything on instinct, the way he most certainly did not, and it made him strangely jealous. She was better at being her class than he was his, in his mind.

“Yeah, I know you don’t like the diapers,” she says. “And I’m sorry – I wouldn’t like them either. I’m sorry you got the short end of the stick, but you can’t just sit in pee all day long. You’ll get sick.”

“Don’t like!” Elliot wails. He presses Froggie to his face, sobbing into his soft, short green fur. Darlene’s warm arms come up to cradle him, her fingers running line down the crown of his head. He cries, face red with exertion, until he’s got no more years left to cry.

“I know,” she murmurs, but helps Elliot onto the bed anyway. She rubs his knee through his soft, elastic-waisted jeans – not quite pajamas or sweatpants, but so much better than the stiff shit he once wore. “Life’s unfair, sweet pea. You know that Big – but unfortunately, you gotta learn it Little. Life sucks. We just have to deal.”

Elliot looks away as the cold air hits his skin, sticks his thumb in his mouth so he can ignore what she’s doing.

He tries. He tries really hard. But she’s taking too long, and the air is freezing, and the wipes on his skin feel like needles. He somehow finds the energy, and tears, to sob and sob, shaking, face hidden in Froggie while Darlene get him taped and redressed.

She hauls him into her arms.

“Oh, baby,” she murmurs. Elliot cries and cries, inconsolable. They just would have to ride it out today, it seemed. He grips Froggie like a drowning man to a lifeline, and Darlene decides he's much, much too far gone to fight back. 

She decides rightly. He puts up no protest to be wrapped in all the bed linens – sheets and quilts and blankets – a binky popped in his mouth and Froggie by his side. He’s still crying – but he’s rapidly losing stream, his fight dying and sleep creeping up to claim him.

Darlene sits with him until he’s really asleep, then pulls herself from the bed to dispose of the diaper.

She stops to give a long look over her finally soundly-sleeping brother. Her expression is half-pity, and – more than – half-annoyance at his damn stubbornness, even when he was this young.

How could a baby be this headstrong? How could they have the energy for it?

_I hope whoever they assign him can keep up,_ she thinks, turning to wash her hands. This wouldn’t be her job for much longer, and to say she was anxious to meet ( _hack_ ) her replacement would be an understatement.

She dries her hands on her jeans, thinking quite surely that she would rip whoever it was to shreds, should they do him wrong.

Of course, she hoped it’d all go over smoother than the back of a dolphin, but she knew people. People sucked. She wasn’t going to just walk away, only for her bro to get stuck with the one-in-a-million Caregiver that also happened to be an abuser.

Nah. She’d kill a shitty stranger for his happiness. She always would have, even if they hadn’t ended up exactly here. She'd love him - kill for him, die for him - under any circumstance.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every time i go to work on this it just gets longer and longer....  
> enjoy :)

“Holy fuck, is that Tyrell?”

Elliot clamps a hand over his sister’s mouth, eyes wide.

“Shut the fuck up. Sit here like we don’t know him,” he whispers hoarsely. He can’t tell if Froggie’s eyes really bug out like they do, or if it’s his imagination… but he eases up on his grip anyway.

_Sorry, Froggie. No ouchies. Sorry._

Darlene gently pulls down Elliot’s hand, holds it to her chest. He feels the even ba- _boom_ of her heartbeat, and it steadies him.

“You know he must be here for you,” she soothes, voice gentle with acceptance. She nods, like this makes all the sense in the world.

Elliot, on the other hand, is about to vibrate out of his skin. The only reason Tyrell Wellick would be at the Assignment center with a bunch of Littles running around, would because he was looking to take one home with him.

And the only person it really made sense for them to assign him was Tyrell, really.

If they could, the government often arranged it so those they meant to pair together based on Class already knew each other. A family member was preferred, but Elliot refused when Darlene offered. She wasn’t hurt – she would have refused him if positions were reversed. They spent so much of their childhoods taking care of each other – they had lives, now, outside of one another. And that’s how it needed to stay.

But who else did he know besides Tyrell, anymore? Why else would he be here?

Elliot watches Tyrell out of the corner of his eye, where he stands at the desk filling out paperwork for a bubbly receptionist. He isn’t wearing a suit – the blue of his polo matches his eyes.

“Hey!” A Little girl who was biologically in her mid-twenties runs up to them, her face streaked with lollipop residue, her sparkly pink shirt proclaiming she had “cattitude”. Elliot startles, then stares at the odd specimen, having never interacted with someone his age before.

Darlene wraps an arm around his shoulder. Froggie gives him an encouraging look.

“Hi!” Darlene greets the girl. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Sammy,” the girl says impatiently, having no time for the antics of Big people. “Can he play?”

Elliot whimpers. He does _not_ want to do that, and anyway, he should keep his wits about him. Who fucking knew what Tyrell’s game plan was?

“He can, but he’s a little shy,” Darlene confides in the girl. Elliot makes an indignant sound. He was _cautious,_ not _shy._

Sammy’s patience is ending. Her sneakers light up as she taps her foot. “Do _you_ want to play?”

A middle-aged woman runs up behind Sammy, her hair going gray at the temples. She’s got a half-fond, half-exasperated look on her face, the way Elliot is sure Darlene’s probably looked. “Hey, missy, what’d we say about running off?”

Sammy hangs her head to the woman. “To not to.”

“That’s right,” the woman says. “Now you apologize to these nice people.”

“It’s no problem,” Darlene says kindly. “Sammy here is fine. I’m Darlene, and this is Elliot.”

“Cassandra,” the woman says. “And you’ve already met Samantha.”

“He won’t play, sissy,” Sammy complains, tugging on Cassandra’s hand.

“Sisters!” Darlene exclaims, and she and the woman launch into a conversation involving siblings. Elliot quickly loses interest.

“Why’re you shy?” Sammy asks him in a low, conspiratorial voice. Her long brown hair is pulled into a ponytail, secured with a Princess Elsa hairband. “That sounds boring.”

“Dunno,” Elliot murmurs, petting Froggie’s back to avoid eye contact. “Just am.”

“Do you wanna play now?” she asks, and Elliot doesn’t have a good reason why not – Darlene had unhelpfully kidnapped his cellphone for this, and it could be another half hour, anyway.

“Okay,” he says. He looks back at Darlene, and she smiles radiantly, like he just told her they won the Powerball.

“Go,” she says. “Go make friends.”

Sammy is somewhat older than Elliot, that much is clear, and he spends more time observing her than he does interacting with her. She’s got way too many Barbies for a trip to the local Center, and each is pristine, like she took better care of her toys than she did herself.

Elliot thinks of his terminal at home, and decides he likes this girl.

“You can have Princess Jasmine,” Sammy babbles, handing him the doll. “’Cause she kinda looks like you. And I’ll have Elsa…”

She didn’t seem to be ashamed to be playing with toys in the middle of a public area, and now that Elliot was farther from Darlene, he could see they weren’t alone. Littles played together if they were younger, chatted together if they were older, and generally just enjoyed being understood, in a way Big people just couldn’t.

A Little boy in his thirties had just won Mario Kart, and he was rubbing it in his opponent’s face. Two Little girls sat together, awkwardly braiding each other’s hair, and giggling hysterically when it came out looking bad. An even younger girl gently rocked a baby doll.

“You’re not paying attention,” Sammy notes, combing Elsa’s white hair with her fingers. “That’s okay. Sissy tunes out sometimes too, and she thinks I don’t notice. But you’re just new, I can feel it.”

“Yeah, I’m new,” Elliot confirms quietly. He feels no reason to lie – Sammy didn’t even have the power to backstab him, let alone the intention. “I don’t even have a Caregiver yet.”

Sammy gasps, drops her doll like this was an affront to all humanity. She quickly scoops the doll back up, as if afraid she hurt it. “How?!”

“I never went,” he says simply, pressing Froggie to his chest.

“Elli, babe.” Darlene’s voice makes him turn. Sammy looks up, too, and holds her arms out to her sister, Cassandra, who stands behind Darlene. 

“Sissy,” Sammy says, impatient as she was before. “Gotta go potty.”

Cassandra sighs, though she’s obviously long used to this. “You can walk, baby. I thought you were a bigger girl today?”

“No, I’m a baby, just like you said,” Sammy says serenely. “You hafta pick me up.”

Cassandra gives in, hauling the girl onto her hip, and Sammy looks pleased as punch to get her way. “It was nice to meet you both,” Cassandra smiles, and then they’re gone to find the bathroom.

“Wow,” Elliot murmurs. Darlene crouches down next to him.

“That girl plays her sister like a fiddle,” Darlene laughs. “Don’t get any ideas.”

She combs back Elliot’s hair, where his curls had fallen into his eyes. He hadn’t had a haircut since being classified, and it had just started to become noticeable.

“They’re ready for you,” she says softly. “I have to stay out here.”

Elliot stiffens, grabs a fistful of her shirt.

“I know. But I’ll be right out here, waiting, and if they fuck it up, I’ll light this whole building up, okay?”

She knew just what to say to make him feel better. He presses Froggie hard to his chest. “Yeah, okay.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jack nicholson voice* here's...... tyrell!

“Elliot Alderson?” the bubbly receptionist reads off her notes. She scans the waiting room, just as Elliot approaches the desk on slow, shuffling feet.

Froggie looks nervous, which is never a good sign. Elliot presses his face to his chest so he won’t have to see.

“Yeah,” Elliot replies, in a very tiny voice. “That’s me.”

The receptionist, a large, jovial Black woman, just melts, taken with his large eyes and curly hair, the frog at his side and the little Winnie the Pooh on his shirt. Elliot pretends not to notice, even as she gives him the kind of dazzling, genuine smile that should makes him feel like a million bucks.

“You just walk straight on back, baby. First door at the end. You need help, you turn around and you find me, okay?”

Elliot feels ready to cry. Granted, he’s felt ready to dissolve into tears ever since Darlene said she had to stay in the main office, but… he’s supposed to go down that long, scary hallway by himself? All alone?

“Okay,” he says, swallowing deeply, and he then, just like the big boy he was pretending to be, makes it to the first door at the end. The door opens before her can even put a hand on the knob.

“Elliot Alderson?”

A pale woman, buttoned-up and professional-looking, gives him a warm smile when he nods. It’s not as brilliant as the receptionist’s, but it’s a lot more on Elliot’s wavelength.

She steps aside to let him past. There’s a feeling of finality when the door clicks shut behind them. He was really about to have his fate decided, in a sense.

_The ultimate inspection of a proposed Trojan…_

“My name is Fatima,” the woman says, and her voice is trim. She’s no pretense and all business.

Her accent is a prickly kind of foreign, though Elliot can’t place where exactly she hails from. Though her skin does suggest somewhere European-y.

“Last names do not matter much, but mine is Erikson. I am observer in this place, yes? Understood?”

Elliot nods to her, but he’s only half-listening. His eyes sweep around the room, which is moderately sized, but bigger than he had expected. The lights are turned up too bright for the dark winter outside of the windows, which, in the back of his head, Elliot reminds himself not to look out of.

They were at least twenty stories up, and heights scared the crap out of him – like this. Like how he knew he’d get, if he wasn’t stumbling down there already, looking for a scrap of light in the darkness. He truly didn’t need to start crying because he realized a drop from this height (he misses the double entendre there) would kill him.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Make sure we don’t kill each other.”

“Speak up, child,” Fatima chides him, though her tone is kind. “Yes, I make sure peace is kept. Sit and do paperwork, yes?”

“Okay,” Elliot murmurs, and he actually complies. She reminds him of his mother, in an odd way, from all the way back when she cared for her children. Some primitive part of his brain wants to please her.

The desk he sits at is green, and it throws him for a loop. Adults do not sit at green desks, but Fatima does with no hesitation, like she doesn’t notice.

Her chair is blue. His is orange. Froggie is allowed to rest on the table, which is almost his same skin/fur green. 

“Can read and write, yes?” Fatima hums, shuffling papers. She hands him a pen, and he squints at it in the fluorescents.

No matter how much they tried to deflect from the fact, the Center was run by the government, and had a very clinical, medical feel. The very hospital-like bright lights were making him agitated – he was tired, and it was darker outside than it was in here.

It was driving him nuts, slowly, and he was trying to hold back any sort of episode, whatever it might have been. Just until this was over with. Just until he could lose his shit at home.

Elliot swallows, fidgets with the pen once he accepts it. He turns it over, and the name of the center is printed on the body of the utensil. “Yes.”

He hunches over the paper and fills it out quickly, as if on autopilot. Name, age, date of birth. Simple stuff, until the paper went on, and –

_Explain what you desire in a Caregiver in 300 words or less . . ._

300 words or – ! Elliot didn’t have _two_ words to describe such a thing!

He leaves it blank, pushes it back towards the so-called peacemaker. Fatima glances over the unanswered question but accepts the paper anyway. She gives him a pitying look, which he ignores.

Just like he ignores the – quite comfortable looking, actually – cots set up in the corner of the room. Or the pillows and blankets. Or the _light switch_ the corner was equipped with, which would turn down the light in that section of the room. And maybe turn down the blazing headache that he had brewing.

“What now?” Elliot murmurs. He was ready to go home already. Had been since they stole Darlene.

“You are acquainted with Mister Tyrell Wellick, yes?” Fatima says, over him. She loudly shuffles her papers, and through the walls, Elliot can hear reception taking a call. “He is your first option.”

“First?” Elliot asks, softly. He has yet to meet her eyes, which roam over his slender frame, making her think of her own children. They never could keep any meat on their bones, either.

“Yes, first,” she replies, just as softly. “We would not leave you in his care were you not to approve of him.”

Elliot nearly falls over in his relief. He had honestly thought this was it – and if Tyrell were to snap down the line, he’d be fucked. But there seemed to be an exchange system of some kind, and maybe that, if nothing else, would keep Tyrell in line.

But strangely enough, Elliot can’t see Tyrell betraying him like that. It just doesn’t line up with all the bizarro shit he’s done to keep himself in Elliot’s good graces.

The door opens, and while Elliot’s head snaps up, Fatima seemingly had been expecting it.

“Mr. Wellick,” she greets, without looking up. “You’ve returned your papers, yes?”

“Yes ma’am,” Tyrell murmurs, only a foot or two inside the room, and Elliot knows he’s being watched by big blue eyes. He gently shuts the door.

Elliot does not catch Tyrell’s gaze, or make any kind of move to claim his territory and be aggressive like he should be. He’s tired. He’s Little – or will be, eventually. He doesn’t care.

“I shall be right outside,” Fatima says, stands, and leaves. Elliot’s only barrier between himself and batshit clicks away on her low heels.

There’s nothing but silence, for a long time. The sound of two people and a stuffed frog breathing.

Elliot longs for his pacifier, which he had stubbornly refused to clip to his shirt this morning – only to find that more than one other Little had had various soothers. He was pissed that he had essentially fucked himself on that one, and not even on accident. His pride had once again gotten in the way.

“Hi,” Tyrell tries, and Elliot finally meets his gaze. He can’t stand it anymore, and he’s met with quite the shock:

Tyrell, no suit. Nice jeans and a polo shirt, instead. He’s slowly growing stubble – not a lot, yet, but obvious that he hadn’t taken a razor to his face in a few days. His hair is longer, and he’s smiling, but it’s not the insane-looking corporate smile Elliot has come to know so well. It looks _real._

“What the fuck happened to you?” Elliot murmurs.

“My wife was murdered,” Tyrell says simply, and Elliot has to hold back a laugh. Not at Tyrell – the question was just that stupid.

And then he – Elliot – is gone. Seemingly unprompted, someone takes his place. Tyrell notices.

“Mr. Robot?”

The look on Mr. Robot’s face is pure disgust. “If you harm a hair on his head, I swear I’ll fucking kill you.”

“He doesn’t know we know each other,” Tyrell says, startled. He would never do such a thing – he had already reasoned that to himself. But he was beyond alarmed to be confronted about it, like this.

“I don’t care,” Mr. Robot says, in a bored voice, and even though Elliot is wearing a shirt emblazoned with Winnie the Pooh – Tyrell feels a cool slice of fear go through him. Robot meant business, and he just might lose his life over it.

Robot leans forward, flashing a grin, and fiddling with the pen in his hand as if it were a cigarette. “Don’t forget that I’m here, ready to kill you if you fuck up, and we’ll be fine. Just take good care of him, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

And then he’s gone. Elliot blinks, and sticks his thumb in his mouth, and gives Tyrell a sleepy look.

Tyrell nearly loses his shit, nearly runs out screaming and crying, because he’s just witnessed insanity – pure insanity, and not simply crazy. There was a _different person in Elliot’s body –_ and he didn’t seem to be any the wiser. Tyrell had never seen the switch, the off and on, and it bugged him out.

He swallows it back, though, gives _this_ Elliot a smile. “Are you tired, honey?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also I realize Joanna wouldn't be dead yet in canon, and also the Elliot/Robot relationship doesn't start being any sort of caring until later. I scrambled it for my own purposes, yo


	8. Chapter 8

“The question we’re not asking is _why_ he felt the need to bite,” Darlene says, unshaken. These people didn’t know her brother, who shifts in her lap to better hide his face. He snuffles, and she hopes he won’t start with the crying again.

“Because, just saying, I’ve been in Elliot’s apartment almost twenty-four-seven these last few weeks, and _I’ve_ never been exposed to the wrath of his chompers.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Tyrell protests, cradling his injured arm. It was all a little dramatic, to Darlene. He wasn’t even bleeding, though the teeth marks are obvious and visible, angry red. “Unprovoked!”

“That’s bullshit,” Darlene says. She turns to the receptionist, the pale woman, and a very peeved-looking security officer. “Anyway, we can just leave – it’s not like this is the only Center in New York. Thanks for giving it a shot.”

Elliot is not in the position where anyone’s really listening to him, but had he felt older, he would have a lot of things to say. Firstly, it was unprovoked, but not the way Tyrell was making it seem. He didn’t mean to bite, but he got startled by Tyrell’s hand on his shoulder, and his teeth were the closest weapon he could think of.

Secondly – fuck everybody here, and even Darlene, for making him do this. He was scared, and tired, and wet, and he didn’t have the words to express any of this. He bows his head, resting it to Darlene’s neck. A few token tears roll down his cheeks.

“S’rry,” he mumbles, wetly, and to no one in particular. He squashed Froggie to his middle in a way that can’t be comfortable – but he figures stuffing is less fragile than bones, so the frog should be okay.

Darlene hears him anyway, like she always seemed to. She’s patting his back, but he couldn’t tell you when she started. “That’s alright, babe. You hungry? It’s past lunchtime.”

He nods, and Tyrell watches them with a hot pang of jealousy. He’d fucked it all the way up already, hadn’t he?

“We can sign you out,” the receptionist murmurs, and Darlene sets Elliot on his feet, unable to carry him that far. He rapidly nurses his thumb and doesn’t look anywhere near Tyrell, and his grip has to be enough to crush Darlene’s fingers. She doesn’t ask him to loosen up.

“Wait,” Tyrell says, after them. He looks a little guilty, in his sharp blue eyes, which satisfies Darlene enough to pause. “I scared him – accidentally. It wasn’t his fault.”

“That’s more like it,” Darlene mutters, her hand protectively in Elliot’s hair where he halfway-hides behind her. She gives Tyrell a smile, and it’s a kind, knowing one. “You can’t just approach him, but you had no way of knowing that.”

“And no one was informed of this? Of Mr. Alderson’s hesitancy and fear?” Fatima pipes up, after watching this display for a long time. “You are at fault there, Ms. Alderson.”

Darlene pinkens, as she hadn’t even thought of that. “You – you didn’t let me go back there with him!”

Elliot whines at the tone of her voice. To him, the context doesn’t matter: all he hears is a fight, and he wants it to end.

“Lower your voice,” Fatima says, prim, though not unkind. She was old enough to be the mother of everyone before her, and she understood how children worked. “We are in a place of business.”

Darlene snaps her mouth shut, but she doesn’t keep it closed for long. Her voice quiets. “Shit, then. What now?”

All eyes turn to Tyrell, who coughs awkwardly. “Uh,” he mutters. He gestures to his forearm. “He _did_ bite me.”

Darlene gives him a rueful little smile, though her eyes jump back to Elliot for a split second. Just checking.

“And you’re gonna let that stop you?”

“Hey, Earth to Elliot?”

Elliot cranes his neck to look into Tyrell’s face, from his seat on the carpet. He pulls his fingers from his mouth, the picture book he’d been invested in still open in his lap. _Pat the Bunny,_ which his Bigger brain can’t believe there’s a musician named after. “Hi,” he says.

“I thought you were dressed already,” Tyrell tuts. “Don’t you know what day it is?”

Elliot gives him a bemused little look, like it was an unordinary question. “Uh. Whens-day?”

“That’s right. And do you remember who visits on Wednesdays?”

He hadn’t remembered. He had really forgotten, and he can’t believe that he had. “Sissy!”

“Right. So if you want Darlene to come play, you have to get dressed. Sound fair?”

It did, but buttons and zippers were so _hard._ So tiny, so frustrating. It would be so much easier to sit here in his pajamas, which were patterned with little horses and had no fastening agents of any kind. He can’t grasp the proper way to express this frustration, so he bursts into tears.

“Shit,” Tyrell mutters. He drops onto the carpet with Elliot, so they’re face to face.

“All you need to do is ask for help, _sötnos,”_ he says, cradling Elliot’s warm, wet cheek. It had been a long road to even get Elliot to allow Tyrell to make up a room for him, let alone completely trust him. It would be a long road before he would ask for help every time he needed it, but Tyrell intended to get them there.

“I’m not a mind reader, you know.” Elliot gives a feeble wail, but scrubs at his eyes.

“Up,” he says softly, nursing his thumb for comfort. “Need help – help, please.”

“Okay,” Tyrell says, and he hoists Elliot on his hip. “That, I can do.”

Darlene comes bearing gifts, as she usually did. Elliot shrieks gleefully when she struts through the door, abandoning breakfast and wriggling out of his seat, even though he was supposed to be strapped in. He could be a Houdini when he really wanted to be, and Darlene definitely qualified as a reason to escape.

“Hey, babe,” she says, wrapping him into a hug, and she smells like she’d just had a cigarette, which makes the tiny addict in Elliot’s brain screech like a banshee. Of course, Tyrell hadn’t let him have the occasional cigarette like Darlene had. Of course not.

“Hi,” he says, and is suddenly a tad shy, in his racecar t-shirt and elastic shorts, with his bib half hanging off from his struggle to get down. Even though she had literally nursed him back to health, all those months ago – he was still her big brother, and it was always hard to forget that, when Darlene came to see him.

“Are you okay?” she asks, because that’s always her first question. “Really, are you?”

He nods his head, bobbling it up and down. “Think so, yeah.”

It wasn’t perfect. There were bad days – really bad days, the days of screaming and crying and flashbacks – when Elliot was sure Tyrell was going to sign him off to be someone else’s problem. But even if Tyrell left the room, to catch his temper or school his face, he never left the apartment without warning.

And he never left Elliot while he was small, never, ever. Even when he deserved it. Even when it meant sitting in Krista's office, Elliot in his lap, as she tried to pull any thread of sanity out of him. 

There were those days. But there were the good days, the days of squealing laughter and hide-and-seek, and those were plentiful, too.

“Darlene,” Tyrell greets, and, as always, is gratified when Elliot holds his arms out to be held. He scoops him up, and Elliot sighs, rests his head against Tyrell’s shoulder like he was still sleepy. “Wonderful to see you.”

“Yeah, you’re alright yourself,” she mutters, though she shoots him a grin. “Wine?”

And she pulls out a ridiculously large jug of wine from her purse. “The girl I’m seeing is really into the farmer’s market,” she explains. “They have pretty good shi – stuff, you know.”

“I’m sure,” he says, and accepts the gift, even if he didn’t drink wine. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. And for you, my dear…”

Darlene rifles around in her purse for a long time, scraping past broken lipsticks and credit cards. “Ah!”

And she produces a tiny stuffed horse, with a face that reminds Elliot of the Mr. Robot logo, from so many years ago. He takes it from her, wanting but careful, and gives her a questioning look.

“It was a freak thing,” she explains. “Some lady handmakes them. But I said to myself, Elliot’s gotta have this.” The metaphor isn't lost on him. Once and for all, there go his defenses, trojan horses locked back behind firewalls. Being here, being like this, being held... It's the most honest he'd ever lived his life. There was no going back. But really, the metaphor only makes sense to the part of him that isn't at the wheel – and so the thought is stored away, to needle at him when he's Big again.

“What do you say?” Tyrell prompts, but Elliot isn’t ungrateful – just stunned silent. He finds his voice, behind his thumb, that Tyrell wordlessly replaces with one of the many pacifiers

He holds the stuffed computer-horse to his face. It’s wooly. “Th’nks,” he manages, behind red plastic.

“Anytime, kid,” she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fin! thanks for reading!


	9. bonus :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so a few of yall weren't feeling the tyrell love? were not wanting to end quite so soon? ask and it shall be given to you i have so much fucking time from this damn virus lmao. 
> 
> set smack dab between chapter 8 :3

“What’s wrong?”

No answer.

“Are you going let me in?”

No answer. Long, long pause. A sniffle, maybe, quietly in there. Trying to soothe himself, alone, even though he didn’t have to be.

Tyrell runs a hand through his ridiculously long hair, long to the point that it had begun to bother him. He sets aside thoughts of the hairdresser for Elliot, who had unceremoniously gone to bed in the middle of the evening, Big, and woken up crying, Little.

But however he was feeling at the moment, he had locked the door, and was refusing to answer. And, sure, Tyrell had the key, on a keyring in a junk drawer. But Elliot’s lines about privacy were drawn in hard, blocky streaks. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, do not fucking unlock Elliot’s door on him.

His lines were clear, and Tyrell was wise enough to respect them.

“I’m going to get something to drink,” Tyrell says, to the door. “I’m right in the kitchen.”

And he leaves it at that. He pours himself a cup of coffee, even though the pot had gone mostly-luke-lukewarm, for something to do. And then he hears it, audibly: the click of the knob unlocking, the creak of the door sliding slowly open.

And to his surprise, Elliot is Big, standing in the doorway, and very red in the face. He toys with the hem of his t-shirt, not meeting Tyrell’s eyes.

“I wet the bed,” he says, in one word. _Iwetthebed._ Like a terrible Nordic surname.

“Did you change the sheets?” Tyrell asks, calmly. Unflinching, even though he wants to shake Elliot by the shoulders, smack the sense into him, make him believe that this was _okay._ He was _supposed_ to ask for help.

“No.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes.”

And maybe it’s the fact that he’s Big, or that it was only his second time spending the night at Tyrell’s, but Elliot can’t make himself move. He logically thinks, _okay, I have to move from the doorway. Tyrell has to get inside the doorway in order to help me._

_Help me._

_Help._

But what a foreign concept that was: asking for help. Elliot had been helping himself – and Darlene, and everyone else – since before middle school. He had what he would probably call a bleeding heart, if he didn’t see it from his own perspective. He could save people – he had that power, once upon a time, and Darlene had plans to start again.

He could save people – and had, if you added in all the times he had tipped off the police to the scummy underbelly of New York. But he needed –

“When I was a kid, my mom used to beat me. For this,” he says, hoarsely. He doesn’t know why he says it. It rips itself out on its own accord, and once he gets going, he can’t seem to stop.

“I did it way too long. Twelve, thirteen. Still pissing the bed. She got sick of it. Of washing the sheets, I guess. She got angry when burning me with her cigarettes didn’t solve the problem.”

He’s crying. He can feel it, but the words don’t stop.

“So she beat it out of me. Belts, spatulas, her hands. Books, the big phonebooks. She – “

Then he has to stop, because he’s crying so hard, he can’t speak, and then Tyrell’s hugging him, and he’s warm. For some reason, Elliot always imagined Tyrell as being icy to the touch, like his eyes were to look at. No – he’s warm, human as them all.

Smells like dish soap, like he’d recently done the dishes – because, to Elliot’s surprise, Tyrell was a bit of a cleanfreak, and a believer that the dishwasher didn’t do a good enough job.

There’s a stain on his shirt, probably put there by Elliot himself, and it makes him glad to see. Maybe there was more than a pristine corporate asshole in there, after all.

Elliot knows he should tense up – and his brain crashes, momentarily, from the sudden proximity – but he goes boneless.

He’s so tired. He had just wanted to sleep.

“But it didn’t stop,” he whispers, still crying, but no longer sobbing. “Endless loop.”

Tyrell has gone from concerned into full, heart-racing panic, by that point, listening to him. And though he knows Elliot’s mother had died not long before his Classification, he has thoughts of putting a hit out on her, anyway.

He’s not even thinking, and he’ll realize that he should have given some kind of warning, later. But he’s lost in thought – every time Elliot was afraid for seemingly no reason; it was something like this. He feels sick to his stomach, pushes it away. This was no time to be thinking of himself.

He forgets that he and Elliot don’t know each other that well, really. He forgets that this is only his second time in Tyrell’s apartment, the one he had bought when Joanna’s dream house had gotten too big and quiet. He blanks on all of that, scoops Elliot up, and carts him into the bedroom.

He expects – struggle is the wrong word, but he expects resistance. He finds none. Elliot had been wrung out by merely remembering such a reprehensible event, and Tyrell can’t blame him.

He wishes he could do more. He wishes he could make it all better. He wishes he could get in that car from the movie Elliot likes, drive to the past, and take Elliot away. But all he can do is get him dressed –

( _“No diaper.”_

_“Yes, I’m sorry.”_

_“No.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“No.”_

_“Yes.”_

_A tiny, pitiful sniffle. “Fine.”) –_ help him strip the bed, and start the washing machine.

When he returns to the room, Elliot is sitting awkwardly on his bed, like he was uncomfortable. His beloved frog is in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Tyrell tells him. “I’m so, so sorry, and I wish I could do more than throw sheets in the laundry. Just the fact that she would hit you for that, outside of the fact that your Classification was most likely to blame — I’m sorry.”

He flails, trying to express his sorrow for what had happened to Elliot, the person who deserved it the least. Tyrell’s childhood had been shitty, poor, dirty. Farm life was rough, and his father drank himself to an early grave, running away from his demons. But he was loved, always, unconditionally. And he had fucked up, especially as a college student, way worse than wetting the bed.

He mentally notes that he should call his mother.

“You did more than they did,” Elliot whispers. “Though I still don’t know why.”

“I was lonely,” Tyrell admits, unashamed. “And I was ready for a baby. My wife had been with child, I don’t know if you knew.”

“Fuck,” Elliot mutters. Dead pregnant lady was a hard _image_ to grapple with, let alone have happen to you.

“That about summarizes it,” Tyrell says, mildly. He had done his grieving already, long and hard and miserable. He was determined not to get sucked into that inviting black hole, the one that enticed him with vodka and the shining, unused pistol in his nightstand.

He shakes his head. “I need purpose. Littles provide one.” He pauses. “ _You_ provide one.”

Elliot squirms, so unused to praise. He sticks a finger in his mouth, so he doesn’t have to answer. If there was one thing he didn’t mind about being Little, it was how easy an out that was.

And the shift in Tyrell is immediate, seamless. “Elliot, darling. Where’s your pacifier?”

He colors, faintly, embarrassed by the soother even now. But he finds it, where it’s wedged between the pillow, right between where the safety rails would go, had they not removed them to change the sheets. He sticks it in his mouth.

Tyrell crosses the room, and for a wild moment, Elliot thinks it had all been a dream, all his fears were right, Tyrell is going to hit him –

But he merely clips the pacifier to the collar of his pajama top. He’s barely touched, but the sound he makes is terrified.

Tyrell takes his hand away immediately. He smiles, apologetic. “I must get better at asking first. I will, give me time. Even an old dog can learn new tricks.”

Elliot wipes his tears, shakily. He supposes he can work with that.


End file.
